Once they escaped the Blood Current and all its unnatural threats, they sailed from red-tinged waters, to empty ocean, to a region where they actually saw other ships passing from time to time. They spotted a single ship built with what looked like Krysali crystals, as well as a flying galleon he thought was from the Elemental Nations.
But the majority were entirely unfamiliar to him. Sle...
2024-03-20 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostWhat followed were some of the most grueling days of Kai's life. Not the closest to death, not the tensest, not the roughest, but grueling. They needed to be constantly alert for threats that, when they came, arrived with deadly force. The bone-deep weariness made it easy to sleep, except that at any moment he might be woken up because his abilities were needed against the newest threat.
...
2024-03-19 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post"Do we have no fruit stores left?" Zae Zin Nim asked. "I would have sworn on my cultivation that we had more."
"We need to conserve them," Omilaena said as she forked more fish onto her plate. "Kai might be healthy just eating monsters, but we'll get sick if we don't balance our diets."
"This is supposed to be preparation for a great risk. Is this not the time to break out the store...
2024-03-18 17:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostIn another week, Kai could see the Blood Current on the horizon. He'd expected the name was due to the threat or the lives lost there, but in the distance he could actually see the waves grow increasingly red. Neither Zae Zin Nim nor Omilaena knew why they were red, so they approached with increasing apprehension.
But first, he needed to finish his preparations. Even though their goal was...
2024-03-15 17:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostConstantly pouring qi into the ship was a decent sort of training, but after enough hours at the wheel, Kai eventually got bored. He wasn't going to break any major barriers with just endurance training, especially since Behemoth's Heart seemed to keep him from getting tired. If they wanted to face all the opponents coming for them, they needed far greater power.
Not that his other traini...
2024-03-14 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe ship bounced across the ocean's surface, its crystalline prow smashing into waves as they pushed it harder, faster than it should have been safe to ride. And Kai, moving before he could think about what he was doing, leapt over the side into the crashing waves.
Three things hit him in quick succession.
First he felt the impact of the water's surface, then once he plunged underne...
2024-03-13 17:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostAs the trees blew ever more violently, Jaminob reluctantly approached with his cutter held high. He would most likely be fine unless he awakened one of the true chakra-bearing trees. Those could squash humans like bugs, but they only roamed in the deepest bowels of the forest.
He wasn't sure why the divine forests had become more dangerous, he only knew that they had been getting worse fo...
2024-03-12 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostWhen the furious hunger was finally sated, Kai had returned to himself. No more burning eyes or dark breath flooding from his mouth... even his teeth seemed to have returned to normal when he ran his tongue over them. His shirt and half his pants had been shredded, but that was his usual condition after a battle.
Yet his memories of the past time were cloudy, as if choked by the very dark...
2024-03-11 17:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostOmilaena's fight with Boreas had danced above the roofs of Yulthens as they tested one another. Her opponent had proved shockingly flexible and overflowed with seemingly endless qi, allowing him to make use of what would normally be desperation tactics over and over again. She had evaded injury by a careful ranged strategy, wearing him down one poison needle at a time.
Both of them paused...
2024-03-08 18:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe pain was distant, ephemeral. Kai's mind focused entirely on the monstrous power within him and the answer that it contained.
When he'd come to Yulthens, he'd hoped to acquire dragon's breath, but fate had spurned him again. He had fought past it and sought his own power, but in doing so he'd abandoned that original goal. Dragon flame was a monstrous power, different from mana or qi, a...
2024-03-07 18:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostIf it had been Ren Ziq Quen alone, Zae Zin Nim would have done her best to fight him to the bitter end. Seeing Yurwa and the others retreating to the tower, about to be crushed by the stone, had finally driven her to take a stand. She had to give this fight everything she had.
But they had only fought for a few minutes before Boreas appeared, floating on crystals that appeared to be embed...
2024-03-06 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe crystal knife must have been an expensive masterwork, because it cut deep into Kai's back. He cried out in pain and swung backward... narrowly missing Kraetius.
"Bah." The old man drew another knife and advanced on him. "Almost had you."
"Why?" Kai only managed the word before Tareth's next shout hit him from the side, binding him in place.
"I couldn't stomach the sight of...
2024-03-05 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostAs the city trembled around her, Yurwa told herself that she would stand until the end, at least.
She had a clear view of what she was and wasn't capable of. Her role in the battle was to destroy crystal shielding when possible and remain behind defensive lines when it wasn't. Acid cultivation could provide ranged support, but fighting alone would be suicidal. She didn't think she was a h...
2024-03-04 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostKai ran through the city, struggling with his instincts. Zae Zin Nim was sorely outnumbered at the gates, Nirka and Maggle were under heavy assault, and the main army was barely entrenched at Mercantile Central. He wanted to go help any or all of them, but at this stage the battle was joined and he had to trust in the strength of his allies.
Instead he ran into the city to take on one of ...
2024-03-01 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostKai fully analyzed the siege of Mercantile Central as he sprinted his way over the Yulthens rooftops. It looked like some sort of special defenses had been activated over all the main entrances, where the army camped. In theory many of them could have broken through the other walls, but the opposite side of the building was in range of the last great crystal controlled by the nobles. Staying ri...
2024-02-29 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostLots of people repeated "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy" and Nirka had always hated the phrase. What the fuck did they expect? Did they really think that a plan laid out on a bunch of maps in a room somewhere would actually play out in the real world?
She hadn't been surprised when the revolution turned ugly, not when the oppressors turned to violence and not when things w...
2024-02-28 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe initial stages of the battle would be determined by control of the five great crystals that hovered over the walls of Yulthens. Krainuun had detailed their capacities, from paralyzing beams to great destructive blasts, as well as how to control them. Powerful cultivators had been pouring qi into them for days, so they could easily turn the tide of the battle.
Zae Zin Nim raced ahead o...
2024-02-27 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post(Cognosticon here. I have made edits to chapters 202, 209, and 210. In 202, while I had originally written Kai's emotions to be implicit, given criticism I agree there's some value in making them explicit.
Regarding Orillia, I had later plans for emotional beats after her, but agreed that not including them earlier potentially makes the characters seem callous, so I've moved them to...
2024-02-26 18:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostKai balanced in a handstand, then slowly pressed himself to the ground. Vertical push-ups weren't even really training for him anymore, he could just think more clearly while physically exerting himself. Given the barriers to his Physique, thinking might do more good than training.
He completed one slow push-up with his first name: Ren Ziq Quen. The foreign cultivator seemed to be entirel...
2024-02-23 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostVery few in the city saw the message with the severed head, but the reaction was still horror. The celebrations gave way to an ugly mix of bravado, anger, and fear. Kai hoped their morale raising had been enough, because it had just been dealt a serious blow.
For him, shock had given way to hollowness. He remembered his rage about Fhazi or Nirka's infidelity and now felt childish - those ...
2024-02-22 18:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostKai returned to Slaerta with new enthusiasm for his training. He might not be able to control the many variables involved in the revolution, but he would put everything he had into the one thing that relied entirely on him.
There was no more time for any celebrations or any of the workers trying to flirt with him. His reserves had been thoroughly restored and it was time to push himself t...
2024-02-21 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostGrowing up, the Frontier elites had always been Kai's greatest goal in life. They were truly the best, standing far above the strongest in any individual nation. More importantly, they were the front line against the monsters of the Frontier, keeping humanity safe. The idea of joining them had been like a dream that could barely be grasped.
Since then, he had come a little closer. He'd me...
2024-02-20 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post"And the average gold to crystal ratio," Krainuun said, "has risen to almost ninety Eagles per crystal."
"Wait, ninety?" Kai had been nodding through their conversation, but that threw him entirely. "Everyone was talking like fifty was unreasonable before."
"Ah, but those were peacetime ratios. Even if Krysal isn't engaged in full war, we are seeing wartime values. We've seen this b...
2024-02-19 18:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostThe revolution crumbled beneath her, descending from lofty ideals to chaotic panic. Zae Zin Nim watched from atop a flying crystal, struggling to reconcile her mission objectives with her disgust.
Workers in the acid pits from another miserable city state had decided to join the revolution, but they hadn't put in the work to be remotely equal to the forces opposing them. They barely had a...
2024-02-16 18:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostWith a violent barbarian standing in the background, negotiations proceeded with surprising ease. Kai had met with representatives from the mines, who indeed seemed much better off than the slaves in most other city states. The workers didn't love the merchant nobles, but they were afraid of what the revolutionary army might do if it arrived and didn't want him to overthrow the city.
They...
2024-02-15 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostKai raced across Krysal to another city he hadn't heard of before in a desperate effort to hold everything together. This one was called Teraklis and, in theory, he might be able to make a difference on his own.
Merchants had responded to the fall of Slaerta with the reserve that Krainuun had predicted, but none of them had anticipated how many workers would react. The cities that kept th...
2024-02-14 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostKai wasn't frustrated by a single day of celebration, especially because he knew that none of the others would regenerate as fast as he did. Nirka was still recovering from her qi burn and a stomach wound that got infected, but when he checked on her the local healers were taking good care of her. After the feast that night, most got back to work, rebuilding defenses and reorganizing the city.<...
2024-02-13 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post(Cognosticon here. Thanks for sticking with me through business week. The new schedule will be chapters Monday through Friday.)
Witnessing a battle between armies was strange for Zae Zin Nim. In her experience, most conflicts had been decided by duels between cultivators, which struck her as tidier. Maybe formations would be used at times, but not pitched battles like this. She had to adm...
2024-02-12 18:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostThis is going all the way back to the beginning of the first book, but I wanted to revisit it. As you likely remember, the story begins in medias res - there have actually been two versions of this, one at the time of Kai's banishment and one at the moment his monstrous abilities awaken.
My intent with this was to present a mystery, giving the reader half the clues and letting them ...
2024-02-10 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostA few of you have been requesting this, so I've set up a Discord server:
It is in theory connected to Patreon on the back end now, so you should get an automatic invitation along with special privileges for being a patron. I don't intend to move too much there (it exists for those who...
2024-02-08 17:56:11 +0000 UTC View Post